I enjoy multi-syllabic words. I really thrill to be reading along, find a word I don’t know, and check AHD online or grab the closest dictionary. (As evidence of my wonkish ways: just a couple of days ago, I bought a compact dictionary to put in my backpack because I’m finding Barbara Tuchman uses lots of words in her Guns of August – also, of course, in my backpack – that I don’t know ). I take great joy in writing extended, complicated sentences cascading down the page with endless dependent clauses.

But just in the last couple of years, I’ve realized that – for me at least – a lot of this was pride, some of it was thoughtlessness, and perhaps even a bit of laziness. And so I’ve tried to communicate more clearly in my writing, though I know I still have much room for improvement.